


Nature of a Hero

by Rever



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Male Character, Blood Magic, Drug Abuse, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Grimdark, Multi, Original Character-centric, Polyamorous Character, Prostitution, Sexual Content, Slow Build, the gang's all here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-09-21 18:29:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9561482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rever/pseuds/Rever
Summary: He never asked to be a hero. Nor a mage. And definitely not a Grey Warden. He was just a kid from the gutter, where life was taken at face value. But then, it was in the nature of a hero to see values beyond what was possible. And despite fate already chewing him up and spitting him out once, it seemed it wasn’t done with him just yet.





	1. Homeward bound

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome, dear reader, to Nature of a Hero. This is my first time writing anything of substantial length so hold onto your hats, kick back and relax, and feel free to join me on this descent into madness.
> 
> Nature of a Hero takes place directly after the events of Origins, and will span the timelines of DA:2 and (eventually) Inquisition. Whilst this story will attempt to remain in faith with the lore of Dragon Age, significant canon-divergent events and timeline warps will take place.
> 
> This story is designed to be dark (with any luck). Very little is off limits here. For the sake of brevity and potential spoilers I have chosen not to tag for many warnings - however I may edit these as the story progresses. If something is triggering for you and you'd like to know if you are likely to encounter it over the span of this work, please feel free to contact me and I can clarify.
> 
> This story is a work of fiction. Any and all views expressed by the story and/or characters is not necessarily condoned in any way or shared by the author.
> 
> Also, a huge shout-out to my editing team, SarcasticCookies and EloquentMuse. Without their tireless efforts this chapter would never have seen the light of day.
> 
> All feedback is welcomed and thank you for reading.

_Justinian, 9.30 Dragon_

_Soren_

* * *

 

No one would ever liken Kirkwall, City of Chains, to the once radiant Golden Citadel, the so-called glorious Seat of the Maker, which was exalted by those who payed homage to the Chant of Light.

In fact, even Kirkwall’s locals would have laughingly portrayed it—far more aptly—as something akin to the much more conspicuous Black City, which as any mage knew from direct experience, loomed stark and ever-present over every foray into the Fade. As the Chantry would have it, the Black City was the culmination of Man’s pride and excess. The tangible representation of greed, loathing, and despair.

Certainly Kirkwall would fit the bill.

But as the little trading cog, upon which he was currently thumbing a ride, wound its way circumspect through the treacherous waters of the Wounded Coast, the overwhelming emotion simmering under Soren Amell’s somewhat queasy exterior was one of exhilaration. An unexpected hope for the future that was swelling inside him, even as his more logical side attempted futilely to bat it back down, as the cog made its careful approach towards the city. Even as the vessel passed under the great shadow of the colossal weeping slave effigies that bordered the mouth of the enormous harbour, to Soren, it all just felt like being welcomed home.

It had been nearly two years since Soren, all of fourteen years and cocksure as any young man of that age, had last laid eyes upon the city. Spirited away all those years ago in the dark and lashing rain, wrists bound with magic dampening shackles, and shipped south. The memory was twisted in his mind, perverted by the effects of the stupefying narcotics they had plied his body with.

His stomach lurched unpleasantly with the taste of it and he gripped the deck railing with a white-knuckled hand, reining the reaction in. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate simply on the slow roll of the ocean beneath him. It didn’t help. Particularly now, as he breathed in deeply, that he was beginning to catch a whiff of the ripe stench which emanated from the city with the onset of the morning sun.

It hung drowsily in the air around them as he opened his eyes to the sight of the few other passengers, who had been able to scrape together enough coin to bribe the captain into taking them onboard, beginning to mill onto the deck. Their hardened faces taking in the sight of Kirkwall rising above them.

Refugees. 

Whilst the Fifth Blight was over, the Archdemon defeated at Soren’s hands, pockets of darkspawn still roamed the countryside leaving the land poisoned and blackened in their wake. Denerim itself was facing an altogether new sort of threat. Lack of food and the addition of many refugees fleeing from the surrounding lands had resulted in widespread disorder. In the days before he had left the city, cordons and curfews had been put into place to little avail. With the destruction wrought upon the city by the Archdemon and the darkspawn horde, Queen Anora had been hardpressed to keep the violence from spilling out onto the streets.

Worse still, without the proper organisation to deal with the problem, scores of dead still lined the streets. The gutters still ran red with blood. And an alarmingly virulent pox had taken to the city’s populace. When Soren had left the capital a month ago it had seemed to have been mainly confined to the city’s most impoverished neighbourhoods. But even in the days before he’d taken ship further north in Amaranthine, cases had been reported in the portside town. Carried no doubt by people desperate to return home now that the Blight was over, or even simply fleeing the chaos that was Denerim.

The ship’s captain had been extremely reluctant to take anyone on board, but a criminally high sum of coin had won him over and they’d wasted no time, sailing out that same evening on the tide. Soren had rigorously checked his body all over daily, gripped with an ironic terror that after all he had been through the past year, a stupid pox would be the death of him. The spots had never shown though and apart from the nausea and the nightmares which plagued him, he felt fit as a fennec.

As they approached the Gallows, a shout went up from a nearby patrol vessel, calling them to a halt for docking inspection. As the sails were being taken down and the ship anchored, Soren observed the island prison curiously. He had never had the opportunity to see it up close before; the enclave on which it sat was situated just beyond the gaping maw of Kirkwall’s harbour and accessible only by boat. Once used as an offshore holding pen for slaves, it now served as the home of Kirkwall’s Circle of Magi. The rocky promenade which jutted out of the churning sea was smaller than Kinloch Hold in land area, but the buildings which covered most of the island were much larger in scale. He wondered, a stale distaste swilling about his mouth, just how many mages were stuffed in there. Here and there, dotted about the walls, he could spot the distant forms of patrolling templars, their silver filigree armour gleaming in the early morning sunlight.

He kept his expression carefully neutral on the off chance that anyone was paying attention to him, but he needn’t have worried. For now, he was simply another wretched soul bound for a city that was notorious for squeezing the lifeblood from those who could not play by its rules. But this was Soren’s home, and if there was one game he knew how to play—it was Kirkwall.

He had to suppress a sigh when the boarding party finally got around to getting onto their ship. Two of the interlopers had clambered up the side before the rest of the party, and were gesturing for everyone on board to line up, crew and passengers alike. Soren was unable to even guess at their sex, given the cloth masks wrapped securely around their faces and the ample clothing which covered all of what would normally be exposed skin.

Maker, how bad had the pox gotten that they had already heard wind of it across the Waking Sea? Certainly there were faster ships than the one he was currently occupying, but the news had to be dire if these sorts of precautions were in place already.

He lined up against the railing along with the rest of them and dutifully began to strip, almost enjoying the feeling of peeling off the layers of clothing that had begun to mature into what could almost be a second layer of skin. Putting the stinking things back on was going to be far worse, he could tell.

He was examined head to toe by the plague seekers; his hair combed through, even the inside of his mouth peered into, and deemed to be pox free. His breath hitched as his arms were examined, the plague seeker’s brusque grip running over the long scars decorating the soft underside of his wrists. But if they had noticed the aberration, apparently they didn’t think much of it, or simply didn’t care, as no comment was made. Well, perhaps he wasn’t the only one fleeing Ferelden with such marks. After all, it had been a bad year.

But as one of his examiners paused before moving onto their next victim, staring at him as he struggled back into his pants, Soren felt alarm creeping through him again.

They gestured towards Soren’s shoulder, “You some kind of slave or something?”

Soren paused while buckling his belt, let out a little inward sigh of relief, and then glared at them; made no move to reply. The plague seeker shrugged and turned away.

Fuck. He’d forgotten about the goddamn brand. He pulled his black, woollen jumper over his head, thinking. Although it was unlikely that anyone would recognise or even take much notice of the design burned onto his left scapula, the risk was too great. He’d have to seek out a tattooist as a matter of urgency once he got himself into the city.

He finished pulling his boots back on and scouted out somewhere to seat himself, eventually deciding on a pile of spare rigging at the back of the vessel. The bloody inspection would drag on no doubt, even once the ship was declared healthy. The economic turbulence in the wake of the blight had apparently resulted in a surge of illegal trading, or so he had been informed by the captain when he had embarked at Amaranthine, and the cog’s cargo would need to be thoroughly scrutinised.

So too had the man told him that Kirkwall had barred its gates to refugees, the city apparently bursting at the seams for the past six months, and that Soren was better off continuing north. Of course the captain would be _more than happy_ to take Soren along with them onwards to Rialto Bay once their business in Kirkwall was done. For an extra fee.

Soren had politely turned the offer down, explaining that he was a Kirkwall native, and the man had simply eyed him disdainfully before shrugging. Accent or no, he didn’t think much of Soren’s chances of entering the city. But that wasn’t _his_ problem. The captain had stressed this rather pointedly as he took Soren’s coin.

Well, Soren mused tiredly, running an irritable hand through the inch or so of downy hair that topped his head, if for whatever reason he couldn’t enter by official channels, there were always less _conventional_ ways of going about it. Just, unfortunately, far less desirable ones. He relaxed back onto his impromptu and somewhat scratchy makeshift chair and closed his eyes, weary. He might as well get comfy. He was going to be here a while.

* * *

It was well into mid-morning, nearing lunchtime if Soren’s growling stomach had anything to say about it, by the time the ship had been allowed to berth. Finding himself on solid ground for the first time in a fortnight was a simple bliss, and as he wandered along the docks, he could finally throw off the last vestiges of the seasickness which had plagued his journey across the water.

Around him the harbour was a hive of activity. The street was flooded with labourers moving goods to and from the many warehouses littering the district as gaggles of street traders and fishwives hawked their wares to passersby. He paused briefly to purchase food, his empty stomach churning. Three steamed clams rolled in garlic and butter later, he began to feel slightly more like a functioning human being and strolled onwards, weaving his way in and out of the traffic. An explosion of transactions were taking place in a dozen different languages and coin changed hands rapidly. Always the city towered above him. Kirkwall was a city of verticals more so than the horizontal. Built in a horseshoe around an enormous rocky bay, its tiered districts rose steeply along with the landscape.

Nobody owned slaves in Kirkwall anymore, but hundreds of years ago scores of the wretches would have broken their backs pushing all manner of trade goods, bundled precariously in handheld wagons, up and down the steep streets leading to the city proper above. Now more modern technology took care of most of it. Huge winches and chains hung within a sophisticated pulley system to haul up heavy goods to the higher streets. But for smaller loads and poorer merchants, the grueling labour fell to whichever unfortunates were desperate enough for coin. And there were plenty of them.

He shrugged out of his heavy, leather and fur outer jacket as he walked. Now that the sun had burned away the chill morning mist that had blanketed the coastal waters, he was sweltering in it. He’d need to sort out different clothes. Quite aside from his garments being ripped, threadbare, and stinking from constant use, Kirkwall basically had just two climate variables. Either it was oppressively hot with harsh, glaring sunlight bearing down onto the dark stone streets, or it was bitter, howling wind and sleet straight off the Waking Sea. As such Kirkwall had developed its own unique flavour of fashion to cope with this demand. Hooded scarves were a popular accessory among the wealthy and the working class alike. Not the colourful, floaty silks found in more exotic, warmer climes like Antiva, but hard wearing, stiff cloth which kept the sun off the scalp during the hot days, and the wind and rain off the face during the cold.

He was headed for the large stairwell that acted as the main thoroughfare between the docks and Lowtown, the biggest and most populous district in Kirkwall, barring the underground warren that constituted the Darktown slum. Lowtown was mainly a residential district, and was where Soren had spent most of his younger days. It was where he was headed now, his uncle’s house situated in an old housing estate on the eastern side of town. Lowtown also contained its fair share of domestic facilities, and Soren found himself almost salivating at the thought of a cold pint, a set of clean clothes, and a _bath_. Kirkwall boasted several public bathhouses, a remnant from a time when the city was a stronghold of Imperial rule. Ferelden had never cottoned on to such luxuries, and Soren couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt truly clean.

Half lost in such pleasant thoughts, he was hardly paying attention to his surroundings as his feet navigated the familiar streets with an ease learned through a lifetime of running amok around the city. But if the location wasn’t noteworthy, the sudden throng of people he’d inadvertently stumbled into certainly was.

Every spare inch of space in the square was jammed with people. Ferelden refugees mostly, by the look of them. Some had strung up makeshift camps with whatever materials they could find, while many others simply sat with their meagre belongings, all that they’d been able to carry when their homes and villages had been overrun by the darkspawn.

The atmosphere back here at the rear of the crowd was bleak. Whilst the general hubbub of human life continued even in this wretched state, many of the refugees sat sombre and listless, their oppressive silence broken only here and there by a round of hacking coughs or the piercing whine of a crying baby.

Soren stood on his tiptoes, straining to see over the mass of people to the front of the crowd where some form of commotion seemed to be taking place. At least a dozen uniformed guardsmen stood, nervously he thought, in front of a huge iron gate which barricaded the corridor completely. Through the sturdy metal bars he could see the stairwell beyond; only a hundred yards or so away, for all its accessibility it might have well have been the Maker’s paradise. Between him and the gate must have been at least three hundred people, the front half of which were restless. Several cocksure younger people were trying to rouse the crowd, hurling insults at the guards and posturing.

One of the braver souls decided to push forward, stepping up shoulder to shoulder with the guards and was pushed back roughly.

“Enough!” Snapped one of the guards, an officer with greying hair and a set of wobbly jowls. “You’ve been told, there’s no more room-”

“You’ve got an entire bloody city up there!” A burly redheaded man with a bushy beard, who seemed to be the most outspoken of them.

“Yes,” the guard replied, seething, “an entire city with _no more housing_ for the homeless! What difference does it make for you lot if you’re living on the streets down here or up there?”

A young woman stood up in the crowd. “At least we’d have a chance! How are we supposed to find work when you won’t even let us into the city to try?” This was met with murmurs of agreement.

“I’ve been over this a hundred Maker damned times! We already have more refugees than we can employ!” The officer was becoming red in the face. “There is _no work! No housing!_ Do you think the citizens of Kirkwall whose livelihoods you are _threatening_ will thank us if we decide to let in a bunch of hungry barbarians!?”

The redheaded man puffed up in indignation. “Are you inferring that we’re criminals, Ser!” The murmuring in the crowd became louder.

“And when your children are starving on the streets?” pressed the guard. “Of course you bloody will be!”

“You bastards!”

Soren didn’t see who threw it, but from somewhere in the agitated mass of people, a fist-sized rock had been launched, finding its target squarely on the officers slathering red face. The man staggered backwards, one hand slapping to his face where a slither of blood was beginning to ooze through his fingers. His other hand lifted shakily and pointed blindly into the crowd.

“Arrest that man!” He yammered, spittle flying from his mouth. His underlings noticeably hesitated. The last thing they wanted to do was wade into the midst of an angry mob, but the officer shoved the guard nearest to him. The man staggered forward and raised his truncheon in front of him, more to regain his balance than any intention to actually use the thing. But it was enough. With tensions running as high as they were, and the satisfaction of drawing blood on their aggressor, the mob’s confidence was bolstered.

Soren couldn’t help but wince as the guard was piled onto by all sides, his orange armour disappearing quickly from view as the crowd seethed forwards. By now any sense of control was lost and the rest of the guards began to lay about with their batons as screams and an awful clamour filled the air.

Soren leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding being caught up in the rioting horde as the refugees pressed up around him. He scanned the square, trying to spot if there was anyone official nearby that hadn’t been dragged into the mess in front of him. The situation was worse than he had anticipated. At this rate it’d be a goddamn miracle if the let him through. He’d been banking on the fact that his accent at least was still recognisable as Kirkwallian, but with the fighting on the streets he wasn’t sure anyone was going to care. Still… he spotted a guardhouse near the gate on the other side of the courtyard. Most of the brawling was over this side and a pocket of calm had surrounded the little postern.

He took a breath and began to weave his way through the jostling crowd, swearing loudly when he nearly trod on a small child underfoot. He stepped over the child, then with a flash of afterthought, swiftly bent down and scooped her up out of harm’s way, thinking to deposit her on the safer side of the square. He had barely taken two paces before what must have been the hysterical mother flung herself towards him, her nails clawing at his face and the child ripped from his arms before he could even register what was happening.

Seething, he shook himself free of the throng, having to shove aside two refugees who’d fucking turned on _each other_ , and stamped, mood black, towards the guardhouse. A quick swipe of a hand across his cheek told him that the woman’s nails hadn’t drawn blood, but Andraste’s tits it fucking stung.

He rapped smartly on the wooden shutters of the guardhouse. “Oi!” He called. “Anyone in there?”

For a moment there seemed to be no answer, but then the shutters slid back barely an inch and a pimply face peered cautiously through the gap.

“City’s closed. Piss off!” The shutters slid back with a snap. Soren scowled. Knocked again more insistently.

“I’m not a refugee! Kirkwall, born and bred. I’m just trying to get home man!”

The shutters slid open a crack once more.

“Name?”

For a split second Soren floundered in indecision. He had decided earlier on the voyage over that it would probably be simpler just to go by his real name. He would no doubt be recognised around Lowtown, and he was inclined to think that raising suspicions by attempting to assume a different identity would lead to more trouble than simply shouldering the baggage that came with the name Soren Amell.

After all, the Circle shouldn’t be actively looking for him. Not yet anyway. Unless… he was assuming that Alistair hadn’t reported him. Soren didn’t think that he would but… well. There was nothing to be done about it either way. The Grey Wardens were his bigger problem. The Circle could be dealt with. Layers of bureaucracy would slow them down, and without his phylactery they would have a hard time keeping up with him.

But the wardens were an unknown. Beholden to no one but themselves and surely actively hunting him, no doubt with dark magics of their own; they were the real threat if Soren’s whereabouts were to reach them. After the stunt he and Morrigan had pulled with the Archdemon, he had no doubt that they would have questions. Questions he had no intention of answering. He had a life to be getting on with, and being a Grey Warden was _not_ going to be a part of it. They had taken enough from him already.

Like it or not though, he was a target. Caution needed to be a priority. For now though…

“Amell,” he said smoothly, hoping the guard hadn’t noticed the brief hitch in his reply. The boy was probably too young to make much of the once noble moniker, unfortunately. The name Amell no longer meant much in Kirkwall.

The shutters slid shut again. On the other side of them, he could hear a muffled shuffling of papers. He waited. A few seconds later the shutters opened a fraction of an inch.

“You’re not on the list. Official business only. Piss off!”

Before the stupid bloody things could slide closed again, Soren grabbed the edge of the shutters and pulled them open, revealing the alarmed face of the young guardsman.

“Look,” he said firmly. “Like I said, I need to get home. Now, I understand you don’t want to let me through here with this ruckus going on,” he gestured behind him, “but one of the other entrances to Lowtown, surely. I can make it worth your while.” He fished in his pockets with his free hand and pulled out his coin purse—considerably lighter after the exorbitant fare he had paid for passage over—and dangled it in front of the guardsman.

The boy swallowed, eyeing the purse with longing in his eyes. For a moment Soren felt a satisfied smirk coming over his lips, but then the boy shook his head.

“Man, I can’t help you. Haven’t you seen? They’re all like this. Every avenue to Lowtown is barricaded. There’s refugees crawling all over the place. A thousand at least. Maybe more. If your name isn’t on the lists, and it won’t be if you’ve not come _from_ the city, they won’t let you through. Viscount’s orders.”

 _Fuck off._ “Are you fucking kidding me?” Soren stared at him, aghast. Maker’s balls, how much had changed in two years? What had happened to the good old days when one could always rely on a corrupt guard?

“Look,” the kid said, prising Soren’s fingers off the shutter, “go and get yourself a room at an inn. There’s a ship due to leave and take most of these vermin with it in three days, assuming the weather holds.” Oh yeah, like that wasn’t much of a fucking ask. “They’ll reopen the gates once order’s been established. Now would you _please_ leave?”

Soren stepped back, somewhat dazed, and turned to stare at the chaos surrounding him. It seemed that the guards, at least a score of them now that backup had arrived, had regained a semblance of control over the situation. Most of the Fereldens had slunk back to their camps. At his feet, a man was keening lowly, cradling a broken wrist. And by the gate, surrounded by guards, he could make out a shock of red hair on a body which lay still on the ground. A dark trickle of blood was slowly seeping past one of the guard’s boots.

_—Blood, black in the flickering blue light, seeping onto cold flagstones through matted, dark hair. Bile rising in his throat, and his whole world ringing, ringing—_

He shook his head wildly and lifted trembling hands to bang against his ringing ears. _Shut it the fuck down, Soren._ The tinnitus subsided a little and he stumbled forward, suddenly wanting, _needing_ to be away from the gruesome scene, if only to get the goddamn scent of blood out of his nostrils.

Fuck the official channels then. It was going to have to be Darktown.

* * *

Fishgut Lane seemed to be trapped in its own little bubble of time for all that had changed in the last two years.

In fact, the only major point of difference was that the boy working the corner wasn’t Soren himself. The kid had glanced at him with sullen eyes, lazily angling his body for Soren’s inspection. He was struck by a rather unpleasant lurch of anamnesis. _Gotta get used to that feeling if you’re gonna be living here, boy._ That particular voice in his head was the one that sounded like his uncle.

He jerked his head, a short ‘not interested’, and the boy simply shrugged at him, turning his attention back to the street. Soren stared after him a moment—Andraste’s tits, had he really been that _small?—_ before continuing on his way down the ever narrowing alley. He was searching for the shaft on the street that lead to the sewers. Unpleasant as it was going to no doubt be, he knew from prior experience that it was a sure way into Darktown—one that was far less likely to be frequented by thugs and other lowlifes that could make his life a misery.

All that being said, he still found himself standing unwilling before the entrance, nose screwed up in the face of the ripe scent that was emanating from the shaft. _C’mon, this is hardly the worst place you’ve ever been in. Deep Roads ringing a bell?_ He sighed. Well, hanging around wasn’t going to make the experience go any faster. He gritted his teeth and lowered himself, gagging, into the dark.

He could honestly say that this was probably the worst place he’d even been in. At least the Deep Roads had been vast enough that you could comfortably avoid standing in bronto shit. The slosh that spattered up his legs as he hit the ground into ankle deep sludge was enough to get him to void the contents of his stomach all over his boots. He crouched over retching for a good minute, the hunched posture bringing him only closer to the foul muck he was standing in. Finally the spasms subsided as his senses were overwhelmed to the point of numbness, and he staggered against the slime-coated walls, eyes watering.

The tunnel was pitch black. Further up, he knew, some of the sewer walls were coated with a phosphorescent lichen that you could almost see by, but down here, this close to the ocean, salt lined the tunnels and nothing grew. With no other option he summoned a little ball of light into his palm to illuminate the way and peered carefully ahead to check that he wasn’t sharing the dark with anyone. _Not that anyone in their right mind is going to be down here… yeah, I’m talking to you Amell._

“'Fuck up,” Soren muttered to himself. Maker, a dingy dockside inn was sounding real good right about now. He waded forward into the tunnel, grimacing as the sewerage seemed only to deepen. If only his noble ancestors could seem him now. The thought brought a crazed little laugh to his lips. _And they thought Gamlen’s generation were the fuckups._ He trudged onwards.

What had to have been hours later, and a dizzying amount of turns and carefully picked passageways that left him feeling more and more panicked that perhaps after all he hadn’t remembered this route quite so well as he seemed to recall, he found himself finally on dry ground. Never before had he been quite so pleased to be in Darktown. He would have fallen to his knees and kissed the ground, had he not been worried that in doing so he would likely be compromising his good health.

Darktown itself was a network of old mining tunnels that had been burrowing their way beneath Kirkwall since the city had been founded, bringing up the valuable jet stone that the Imperium had so favoured in their architecture. When the mines had eventually been exhausted, Darktown had become the home for the dregs of society; the diseased, the insane, criminals, and all those who had no other option but to be there. Soren, despite the occasional foray into the upper levels of Darktown, had spent little time here in his youth. Gamlen had forbidden it. The first time he had dared set foot in the place, his uncle had tanned his hide raw.

The undercity was certainly no destination in and of itself. Even the air was foul. Smoke from dung fires hung ever present in the air, and swelling up out of every corner of the place was the poisonous mist known to the locals as chokedamp. Soren could already feel his throat constricting further as he lingered by the sewer exit. He had already spent too long in the miasma as he climbed up through the tunnels. Coughing, he pulled his now filthy shirt up over his nose and mouth as he passed through it. At least the worst part of his journey was over. As long as he could avoid being mugged, he was fairly confident that he could find his way to Lowtown from here with relative ease.

* * *

By the time he staggered out onto the streets of Lowtown, the sun had begun to cast the hazy, golden light of the early evening. Soren closed his eyes and basked in it. His hair and right side of his face was covered in matted blood—not his own. The scratch marks from earlier that day on the left, puffy and red. And he suspected he’d have a black eye by tomorrow morning.

"Oh yeah," he muttered mockingly at himself. "Just  _avoid being mugged._ In _D_ _arktown._ Fucking idiot."

He was caked in shit, half-digested clam, and Maker knows what else from thigh down, and with a pang of loss he concluded that this time, his boots were not going to come back from it. Still coughing a little, he began to pick his way through Lowtown’s streets. If he was going to make it home in time for dinner, he’d need to get a move on.

The neighbourhood still looked exactly the same. Gamlen Amell’s apartment— _hovel_ _,_ the more sardonic part of his mind supplied—was situated in a dilapidated block of housing which nestled around a cramped courtyard. In the centre of the narrow space was a small raised garden bed which may have once housed some form of decorative shrubbery. However, after years of neglect and lack of sunlight, it had long since transitioned into a dumping ground for a wide variety of unwanted objects and trash. Here and there, perhaps fuelled by the organic slop which was so frequently emptied onto them, vivacious weeds swayed with every breath of wind that was sucked into the courtyard, and a colourful scattering of wildflowers winked out at him from amongst the greenery.

Soren couldn’t help the little half-grin that crept onto his face at the sight of a haggard, white cat lounging on the wall of the bed in a small sliver of sun. Old One-Eye Sam had been a permanent fixture for as long as he could remember. Some things never changed.

The same could be said for the walkway to his uncle’s front door. Here was the collection of herbs and potted plants that belonged to the toothless old woman two doors down. One of the clay pots—currently sporting a lush elfroot—had once been brightly painted by Soren himself, some ten years or so ago. An apology, if he remembered correctly, for once calling the batty old coot a witch. The irony of this was not lost on him, and for a moment, a shadow of a smirk flitted across his lips. He wondered idly if old Ava had suspected, somehow _known_ that he was a mage, but he dismissed the thought. The old lady had been convinced of all sorts of nonsense.

The house next door to his uncle’s seemed to have changed ownership. A young girl around his age was seated outside on a bench, nursing an infant.

For a moment his heartbeat was too loud in his ears. _Shut it down, Soren._ He attempted half-heartedly to look non-threatening, remembering too late to fix his hollow, dead-eyed resting face into something resembling a friendly smile. Her eyes widened, and without a word she stood and slipped inside her house, letting the door slam shut behind her. He rolled his eyes skyward. Sighed inwardly. Pressed on.

His feet seemed almost to drag as he walked the last few paces to Gamlen’s door, the last apartment on the row. There was nothing to suggest that two years had passed. Maker, even the little pot that Gamlen used to discard his tobacco butts was still wedged into the corner of the doorway; looking for all the world as if it hadn’t been touched since Soren shoved it there after kicking it over accidentally on his way out the door the last time he’d left. He stared at it for a long moment, feeling the cold weight of the past settle over his shoulders. He swallowed back a sudden surge of nostalgia, leadenly tinged with a very real apprehension of what awaited him beyond that door.

Was he even going to be welcome here? He had been but a child when the templars had dragged him south to Ferelden. And now… well. He wasn’t sure what he was, but the child was gone. Lost somewhere between the Deep Roads and Morrigan’s thighs. Bleeding out with the piled up, silent dead in the gutters of Denerim.

If not here though… then what? The thought broiled inside him. His raised hand stalled, its momentum leeched away by the terrible emptiness settling deep in the pit of his stomach.

_Oh come on. Get it together._

He swallowed. Pushed the feeling back. Knocked.


	2. Reconciliations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, a biiiiggg thank you to my editing team SarcasticCookies and EloquentMuse for their tireless efforts.
> 
> All comments and feedback appreciated. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

_Justinian, 9.30 Dragon_

_Soren_  

* * *

_He swallowed. Pushed the feeling back. Knocked._

His heart hammered in his chest. His mouth was dry. Slowly, he let his raised fist fall back to his side. The door stood before him, impenetrable. The wood solid and still, as if mocking him for the agitated swell of feeling that was churning away in his stomach—as if ten thousand rabid butterflies had just landed to roost in his gut.

He clamped a lid on the sensation and listened closely for any sound from within the house, but all he could hear was the mournful whistling of the wind as it blew through the courtyard.

He lifted his hand again to knock a second time, but before his fist could make contact with the wood the door sprung open halfway and Soren found himself nearly eye to eye with… a _woman?_

His stomach did an odd kind of flip and for a moment he felt a dizzying alarm. Like his centre was being sucked down away from him.

_She looks like me._

The crazed thought drifted through his suddenly vacant mind.

_Why the fuck does she look so much like me?_

The young woman ran her eyes up and down his filthy frame pointedly, a faintly pissed off expression buried in her furrowed brows. If she had noticed any resemblance between them, it didn’t show on her face.

There was a long pause.

“Just who the fuck are you supposed to be?” she asked him.

Soren gaped at her, his mind blank and lost for words. The hell was this woman in his uncle’s house for? Gamlen hadn’t—Maker forbid—left, had he? It was inconceivable. They had lived in this house for nigh on fourteen years.

Her narrowed eyes pierced through him, a startling cornflower blue. _“Well?”_ she prompted.

Soren spluttered incoherently, suddenly finding himself put on the spot. He hadn’t been prepared for this scenario.

 _“Me?”_ he managed to choke out, indignant. “Who the fuck are _you?_ ”

For a moment they stared each other down. The woman’s short hair, raven black as his own, shifted a little in the breeze. She leaned against the doorframe, confidence oozing from the relaxed stance. She was ever so slightly taller than him. Must have a couple of years on him, at least. Her bare arms crossed over her chest; they were well muscled.

“Name’s Hawke,” she stated at length, venom dripping from every word, “and I live here. So, you can either tell me who you are and what you want, say… _now_. Or you can fuck right off back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”

Soren bristled, irritation welling up inside him and suddenly hyper aware of the image he must be presenting, caked as he was in blood and filth. He caught the automatic retort on the tip of his tongue. Pushed it back. Held onto the anger though, his only barrier to the despair that was threatening to rise up from deep within him.

“Gamlen,” he growled out through his chokedamp constricted throat. “Gamlen Amell. He still live here?” _Please tell me this isn’t fucking happening. Please, please, please—_

She brushed a few threads of her choppy fringe out of her face and eyed him, considering.

“He owe you money?”

Soren blinked. “Huh?” he replied, thrown for a loop. “What? _No._ I—” _Well… probably actually._ “I just… I…” The words dribbled to a halt as his throat tightened further. “Is he here?” he ground out at last. He couldn’t help the slight note of panic that seeped into those last words. Hated himself for it.

Hawke’s mouth opened to reply, but she was interrupted by a grumble from within the house.

“Marian, who the fuck—” The door opened fully and Hawke was shoved to one side as an older man shouldered his way into the doorway.

Silence abounded.

Gamlen still looked the same. Maybe a few more lines of grey streaked through his dark hair, giving it an almost blue-ish tinge, and his grizzled face held an extra line or two, but Soren’s heart stood still for a moment as the man stared up at him.

Maker, when had his uncle become so small? The man from his memories had still towered over him two years ago.

Gamlen’s face had drained of colour and he stood stock-still, staring at Soren as if a ghost had just turned up on his doorstep. He supposed it had in a way. But his uncle’s pale, grey eyes were searching his own, and Soren could feel the twisting knot in his stomach slowly ebbing away, to be replaced with an equally uncomfortable lump smack bang in the middle of his throat.

He could see Hawke looming behind Gamlen, staring between the two of them, bewildered. Then, with an almost pained sort of grimace, Gamlen took a hesitant half step forward. His hands tentatively raising, as if he were unsure exactly what to do with them.

“Soren?” he bit out hoarsely, face haggard.

He couldn’t reply. Could barely manage the short, jerking nod he threw in his uncle’s direction. Even if he knew the words, even if he could somehow force them through his tightened throat, there was no way in hell he could open his mouth without sheer, raw emotion guttering out of him like water from behind a floodgate. He swallowed, frantically trying to hold back the overwhelming feeling threatening to pour out of him. But then Soren saw with a little jolt of disquietude that his uncle’s eyes were misty, and the next thing he knew Gamlen had thrown himself forward with a throaty “Stupid idiot,” and enveloped him in a crushing embrace.

There was a brief moment where he hung onto his composure just long enough to see Hawke’s eyebrows hurtle through the roof, before his vision blurred and he realised belatedly that he was sobbing loudly into his uncle’s shoulder. His fingers clenched into the soft fabric of Gamlen’s shirt as if he were about to be swept away at any second.

They stayed that way for what seemed forever. Desperately clinging to one another until eventually Soren’s brain caught up with his emotions and his body tensed reflexively, uncomfortable with the intensity of the moment.

His uncle, either reading this, or more likely, feeling much the same way himself, stepped back a pace. But his hands remained clasped upon Soren’s upper arms, as though if he were to let him go Soren might just simply vanish. Given that Soren had essentially done just that two years beforehand, the concern may have been valid.

But as Soren stared down at his uncle through bloodshot eyes, he couldn’t help but feel that some small part of his fundamentally disjointed life had finally clicked back into place.

He was home.

Gamlen was staring at him, seemingly still in shock, but Soren could see that his eyes were beginning to wander, taking in the blood and wounds decorating Soren’s skin.

“The fuck happened to you?” he croaked out. “Are you okay?”

Soren went to sigh. That was a somewhat loaded question. Where to begin? But the intake of breath into his chokedamp ridden lungs sent him into a round of strangled coughs instead.

“Long story,” he managed to wheeze out once it subsided. “Um… can I come in?”

Gamlen’s eyebrows had begun to furrow in concern.

“Of course,” he muttered, stepping back off the threshold as if he’d only just remembered where he was. Soren found himself gently herded into the living area like some fragile, broken thing and set down on a seat by the fire, upon which a pot of stew was bubbling away. He looked around, taking in the familiar sight of the room. Strange. Everything seemed so much smaller now. Perhaps a little cleaner than usual too…

Hawke had followed them in and sprawled herself out on a chair next to the dining table. She propped her legs up on the bench lazily and stared directly at him. Her eyes were narrowed and Soren found himself wondering irritably if maybe she just permanently looked pissed off.

Gamlen had disappeared momentarily into a back room, and came back with a small tub of water, a cloth, and a familiar, little brass tin that Soren recognised from being patched up from numerous cuts and grazes from his childhood.

He groaned. “Honestly, Uncle. I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Gamlen said shortly. He dragged a chair over to sit opposite Soren, and after wetting the cloth, began to dab mercilessly at Soren’s face. “You came up through the sewers, I assume? You stink to high fucking heavens.”

Soren winced a little as the grime was wiped off the imprints the woman from the riot had left on his skin. “Well, what was I supposed to do?” he retorted wearily. “The whole city’s in lockdown.”

His uncle barely paused from scrubbing dirt away from his hairline. “You should have gotten a message to me. I would have got you in.” A sardonic snort came from Hawke’s direction. Gamlen ignored her. His eyes were hard. _You should have gotten a message to me much sooner than that,_ they seemed to be saying. It was left unsaid.

Soren glanced askew, suddenly feeling like he was twelve again and being berated for not coming home before dark. “I didn’t want to wait,” he muttered. “It’s been fucking long enough.”

“You don’t fucking say.”

The conversation lapsed into silence as Gamlen finished cleaning off Soren’s face and began to apply a waxy ointment to the abrasions.

“This is going to need stitches,” his uncle stated after a minute or two had passed, tapping the skin above Soren’s left eyebrow. Soren frowned at him. Brought his hand up to feel whatever it was that Gamlen was referring to. His fingers came away sticky with fresh blood. Huh. He didn’t even remember getting that one.

“Marian, would you get dinner served?” Gamlen directed at Hawke, who simply quirked an eyebrow at him before doing as she was bid. He grabbed Soren’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “Go and find yourself some of my clothes to change into,” he instructed him gruffly. “Your old stuff obviously isn’t going to fit you anymore.” He left it at that and turned away, presumably going to find some needle and thread.

Soren shot a quizzical glance at Hawke’s turned back. No one was yet to explain what she was even doing here. But he padded his way into Gamlen’s bedroom, feeling inordinately tired all of a sudden. A set of clean clothes would be a godsend. He glanced curiously around the room as he entered it, wondering at the second bed that had been squashed into the already cramped space. The fuck was going on here?

Gamlen kept his clothes in a wooden chest by his bed. Soren shuffled over and began to rummage through it; pulling out a simple, undyed linen shirt, a pair of pants, and a thick pair of woollen socks.

He sat down to pull his boots off, struggling a little with laces stiff and caked with Maker knows what, and examining the things with a critical eye once they were free of his feet. His initial reflection had been correct. He doubted the boots were salvageable—they’d carry the scent of shit with them forever—but they were all he had until he could sort out a new pair. He set them aside to try and clean later.

He dressed quickly. The borrowed clothes sat a little awkwardly on his frame. Gamlen was a bit broader than him around the shoulders and Soren was now taller than his uncle. As such the shirt’s hem sat higher on his hips than he would’ve liked, and the pants stopped just above his ankles, but they’d do for now. He left the neck laces of the shirt undone—the house was sweltering with the heat of the afternoon just gone and the cooking fire—and turned to reenter the living room, boots in hand.

He caught sight of himself in a mirror that hung by the door just as he was leaving and paused for a second. It’d been awhile since he’d seen a decent reflection of himself. Hollow eyes, black as pitch glowered sullenly back out at him. Now that the dirt had been scrubbed off his face, he could see that the skin around his left eye was puffy and beginning to turn a ripe shade of peach. The thug that had set upon him as he made his way through the twisting tunnels of Darktown had scored a good one on him. It was probably the same swing that had apparently split his eyebrow, the little wound his uncle was mothering over.

All in all, he looked like shit. He fingered the inch or so of black hair that stuck out at all directions atop his head, mourning the loss of his nearly waist-length locks that had been burned away to the scalp some three to four months ago. It was going to be a long time before he looked anything like himself again. At least his eyebrows had grown back.

When he made his way back into the living room he found Hawke and Gamlen seated at the dining table. Three steaming bowls of stew had been set out, and the air was redolent with the hearty scent of meat and vegetables. A hot loaf of crusty bread had been placed in the middle of the table. Soren’s stomach growled audibly.

“Yeah hold on,” Gamlen drawled. “Let me fix that brow of yours first.”

Soren collapsed in the chair next to him and held still as the cloth came out again to mop up the blood that had oozed out of the wound. However he was unable to stop himself from flinching violently when his uncle jabbed him in the forehead with a needle, much to Hawke’s noticeable amusement.

“Andraste’s flaming ass, Boy. Fucking hold still, would you?”

Soren fumed silently as he subjected himself to the treatment, scowling out across the table at a smirking Hawke from underneath his uncle’s hand, which had plastered itself across his face to hold him in place.

A minute later and another quick dab of the cloth, it was done and Soren jerked away from the ministrations gratefully. He pulled one of the bowls towards him, relishing the savoury aroma that wafted up at him. He barely paused to blow on his first spoonful, shoving it into his mouth with the enthusiasm of a starved man.

Maker. It was heaven on a spoon.

He gratefully accepted the slice of bread that Gamlen thrust at him, tucking into his stew with gusto.

“Don’t hold back,” his uncle encouraged him, voice oddly soft. “You’re so fucking skinny. You look like a bloody elf.”

Soren didn’t bother to reply to the insult. For a minute or two the table was silent as they ate, but eventually Soren noticed Hawke surreptitiously staring between Gamlen and himself. A calculating look decorated her features.

“So,” she said finally, picking delicately at her dinner. “When were you going to tell us you had a son, Uncle?”

Soren choked on his stew. Coughed wildly. _“W-what!?”_ he strangled out. _“‘Uncle’??”_ The fuck was this bitch on about? He stared accusingly at Gamlen.

Gamlen pinched the bridge of his nose.

“He’s not—” He broke off. Glanced tiredly at Soren. “Ah, forget it. Soren, this is Marian. She’s the eldest of my sister’s brood.” He gestured at Hawke with his spoon. “Marian, Soren is your…” He paused, seemingly trying to connect the dots in his head. “Second cousin?” he postulated. “He’s my cousin Revka’s baby. I’ve raised him since she passed away, back in ‘fourteen.”

Hawke was staring at him. “That was sixteen years ago.” She pointed at Soren. “He’s how old?”

“Sixteen,” Gamlen grumbled, running a hand through his greying hair. “I know what you’re going to say—”

“Nine months,” Hawke spat, interrupting him, “we’ve been living here. And you never once thought to even _mention his existence?”_

Gamlen opened his mouth to reply, but Soren beat him to it.

“Why the fuck is my _cousin_ here?” he demanded. “Since when do I even _have_ a cousin? I thought your sister lived in Ferelden.” _Oh fuck, that’s right._ He shelved that thought for later. Gestured harshly at Marian instead. “I mean… what? You trying to replace me or some shit?”

“Oh, don’t be fucking ridiculous!” Marian snapped at him. “Uncle—”

“Just finish your goddamn dinner,” Gamlen snarled at them. “Both of you.” He lapsed into silence, chewing on his stew savagely.

Soren suddenly found that his appetite was non-existent. He pushed his bowl away. Hawke wasn’t touching hers either. He made to get up from the table, but his uncle’s hand shot out to encircle his wrist, pinning him in place.

His uncle’s knuckles were white. Soren raised his eyes with some trepidation to meet Gamlen’s. They were two hard glints of ice. His uncle’s mouth was twisting furiously. He seemed to be trying his best to hold something in.

“Uncle,” he croaked tremulously. He didn’t know what to say. “I—”

 _“What the bloody hell is wrong with you!?”_ Gamlen exploded, shooting up out of his seat to tower over him. The blood drained from Soren’s face. His mouth worked soundlessly.

“WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN!?” Gamlen thundered at him. Soren withered in the blast, shrinking back into his chair. “YOU SAILED AWAY LIKE A SHIP IN THE BLOODY NIGHT! NO NOTE! I DIDN’T KNOW IF YOU WERE LOST, OR INJURED, OR DEAD IN THE FLAMING GUTTER!” Gamlen drew in a deep breath. “DID YOU RUN AWAY? ELOPE? WERE YOU KIDNAPPED BY SLAVERS? DID YOU TURN INTO A FUCKING MAGE AND GET DRAGGED OFF BY TEMPLARS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!?”

Soren opened his mouth to reply. “I—”

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU FUCKING DID TO ME!? YOU ASSHOLE! FOURTEEN FUCKING YEARS I RAISE YOU, AND THIS IS THE THANKS I GET!?” Gamlen’s face was steadily turning purple.

Soren tried again. “Uncle, I—”

“TWO FUCKING YEARS! NOT A SINGLE BLOODY MESSAGE! NOT EVEN A ‘Hey Uncle, I’m alive by the way’. YOU STUPID, SELFISH _PRICK!”_

Anger slammed into him. He _had_ . He’d tried. Countless letters, each one as useless as the last, screwed up and littering his bunk at Kinloch Hold. What had he been supposed to say? ‘I’m sorry, I’m a mage. I’m never going to see you again’. Nothing had seemed right, had seemed _good enough_. And it’d fucking hurt. It’d been easier in the end, to avoid the inevitable reply. ‘Well it’s for your own good. Nothing to be done about it. Have a nice life’.

He stared up at his uncle. “Are you done?” he whispered, white-faced.

Gamlen glared down at him furiously, chest heaving with exertion.

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!”

Silence rebounded about the room following this proclamation. Gamlen sank back into his chair. Buried his face in a hand. “I thought you were dead,” he repeated shakily. “I _grieved_ for you.”

Soren sat silent, body trembling. He could feel some horrible emotion worming its way around inside his gut. _Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry, you asshole._

He sucked in a shaky breath. Across the table from them, Hawke sat staring, mouth agape. He still didn’t have the words. It was as if his head was clogged up with chokedamp, sealing off every avenue of coherent thought.

 _“Well?”_ his uncle suddenly demanded. “Don’t you have anything to fucking say?”

Soren’s teeth clenched, his jaw aching. “Do you,” he hissed out, “have any fucking _clue_ what I’ve been through? What I’ve had to _do_ to get back here?” Well no. Of course he didn’t. But Soren didn’t care.

“Fine. You wanna know?” He eyed his uncle vindictively. _“YES. I’M A FUCKING MAGE!”_ he roared out at Gamlen abruptly, not even caring about the stunned Hawke sitting across from him. “Happy now!? I had no idea until the templars dragged me halfway across the goddamn continent and locked me up in that godforsaken tower! I lost _everything. My life was taken away from me!_ So, you wanna sit there and judge me? Fine! Go fucking right ahead. Just one more person to add to the goddamn list.”

He was standing now, his body quivering with anger. He snapped his glare onto Hawke. “And if you’re going to fucking report me, can you at least wait until I’ve had a fucking bath? I promise not to turn into an abomination until I’m done washing my hair at least.”

Silence met his outburst. Hawke was staring at him as if he’d just grown another head. His uncle’s face was buried in his arms. His chest was heaving silently. Soren stared down at him, appalled. Seriously? Had the news actually reduced his uncle to tears? His lips set in a grim line. While he had known that this conversation was never going to have gone down well, he’d been hoping that at least he might have a safe haven to get his shit together for a couple of weeks before he had to start running again.

 _And where are you running to, Soren? When’s this all going to end?_ The voice was insidious in his head. _Do you even know what you’re running FROM? Here’s a clue: it’s not just the Wardens._

Soren scowled. “Shut up,” he muttered, aware that he probably wasn’t helping his case as a crazy mage. To his surprise his uncle looked up, seeming to think that was him that Soren was addressing.

“Sorry,” he snorted, and Soren stared down at him dumbfounded. Was he… fucking laughing?

It was true. Gamlen had tears streaming from his eyes but he was cackling maniacally, unable to contain himself.

Soren was completely taken aback. “What’s so funny?” he demanded, suddenly feeling somewhat miffed. He’d just bared his fucking soul. It wasn’t a laughing matter.

Gamlen seemed to sober up some. “You,” he said shortly. Dissolved into laughter again. “Honestly Boy, don’t be so bloody dramatic.” He waved a hand towards Hawke. “No one here’s going to dob you in. Don’t be ridiculous. Marian’s a mage too. Maker,” he added as an afterthought, “I might as well just open a bloody halfway home for apostates. Fucking enough of you around here.”

Soren swung around to stare at Hawke. _“You’re a mage?”_

Hawke was glowering at Gamlen. “Thanks, Uncle. Yes,” she replied testily, “and he’s right. I’m not going to report you. I wouldn’t, even if you weren’t apparently family.”

Soren swallowed, taking it in. Floundered. What did that mean then? Did his uncle seriously… not care… that he was a mage? He hadn’t dared to even dream that it was possible.

“You…” he started cautiously, “don’t seem all that surprised, Uncle.”

Gamlen grunted, his chuckles finally subsided. “Well,” he said. “I mean, family like yours? It would’ve been a thrice blessed miracle if you hadn’t been.” A glint of sorrow flitted across his face. Soren narrowed his eyes at him. _Family like mine? The fuck does that mean?_ But before he could voice this thought, Gamlen continued on. “I went to the Gallows, you know. To look for you. Honestly thought you might’ve been there. Fucking templars nearly threw a fit, assuming I’d been harbouring an apostate.” He spat viciously. “But you weren’t there. There wasn’t any record of your arrest. They didn’t have a fucking clue what I was talking about.”

Soren sighed sullenly. “No,” he said lowly. “I guess there wouldn’t have been.”

“So what the fuck happened?”

Soren ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing up on end. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” he said. “It’s…”

_Too fucking complicated by far._

“It’s shit,” he said instead. “Really, just, _fucking shit.”_

Gamlen’s gaze had softened. He stood and reached for him, but Soren flinched away, still wrestling with an anger inside him. He needed to get away from here. He wasn’t ready to relay the whole fucking sob story. Particularly with Hawke still sitting there, gawking at them. His cousin. Sure. What the hell was she even doing here?

He wandered over to his shit-stained boots and slipped into them, not bothering with the laces. Stamped his way over to the door. Gamlen stared after him.

“Oh come on, Soren. Where are you going? _Soren—”_

“To the Hanged Man,” he snapped. Wrenched open the door. “I need a goddamn drink.”

He let the door slam shut behind him. Breathed in the deliciously cool air that had settled over Lowtown with the onset of the evening, and then swore loudly as he stumbled over the stupid tobacco butt pot that sat just outside the threshold.

He stuffed the thing back into the corner, fuming. Well. He supposed that had gone about as well as he could’ve hoped. Albeit the addition of Hawke had been completely unforeseen. His uncle had mentioned that he had an older sister, but it had always been the sort of thing that had absolutely no bearing on his life. Gamlen had been estranged from her from before Soren had even been born. He’d barely even spoken about her—only in passing when he’d been into his cups.

Maker, he hadn’t even recalled that he would have family in Ferelden. How long had Hawke said she’d been in Kirkwall? Nine months? He tried counting back in his head, before giving up and putting the thought out of mind. Probably wouldn’t have made a goddamn difference. Not with the whole fucking Warden thing. For a moment, ghosts from his past flashed before his eyes. Alistair’s pleading face, and—his heart gave a little pang— _Morrigan._

_Ouch._

She’d really been the only reason he’d stayed, after all. Long nights under the stars, with only the crackling of the fire to keep them company, spent talking him around.

_Morrigan, you fucking hypocrite._

He shoved the memory aside, before his cracked and roughly sewn up heart could start bleeding again. Like he needed another fucking wound in his side right now.

Around him, the city was settling into the evening. Lines of burnished orange and dusky pink flared out across the dark blue even sky. Windows from the houses nearby were flickering with golden firelight which spilled out onto the streets, and here and there hanging streetlamps filled with oiled wicks were being lit from long tapers.

Kirkwall towered up above him, the distant streets of Hightown perched stark against the night sky like some malevolent creature sitting astride the cliffs. It wouldn’t be hard, Soren thought, to lose himself for a while here, among the twisting cobbled streets and the constant thrum of humanity. If only the memories and broken nightmares of his past could be misplaced as easily.


	3. Ab falso quodlibet (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to anyone who has been waiting on this chapter. It took me so long to get to a point where I was happy with it. The next chapter is mostly written though, so that will be up soon depending on how fast I can run it through the editing mill.
> 
> Also, keep an eye on the dates. We've gone back in time two years.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left kudos/followed this work! As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated.
> 
> Also, just a warning, there are some references to child prostitution in this chapter.

_Solace, 9:28 Dragon_

_Soren_   

_Kinloch Hold_

* * *

“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.”

The elderly mage’s voice rang out over what apparently passed as a Chantry this far from civilisation, and echoed off the towering, vaulted ceiling. Soren picked miserably at a loose thread on the sleeve of what was quite obviously a second-hand set of robes, and shivered slightly despite the veritable shrine of candles which illuminated the otherwise gloomy room. The Tower of Magi was a cold place, even now in the height of summer.

Well, one assumed it was still the height of summer. It had been the last time he’d checked, but since his entire world had somehow turned on its head seemingly overnight, he supposed it didn’t hurt to remain skeptical. He sat stiffly on the hard wooden bench, arms crossed and fingers thrumming irritably where they rested on his bicep.

“Can anyone tell me what that means?” questioned the mage standing before them—an older, simpering woman, who in another life might’ve made an excellent priest, Soren thought coldly.

Although the fact that she had been born a mage hadn’t stopped her from delivering sermons with the execration and self-loathing common among many of those who pledged themselves to the Chantry.

Despite the annoyance that the woman instilled in him, Soren could feel his eyelids drooping in the flickering light. The last few days of little to no sleep—punctuated as it was with fever nightmares, nausea, and bouts of sweating spells—exacting their toll on him.

He’d awoken properly, finally fully lucid, what had to have been yesterday, in a cold sweat and had been greeted by the sight of a white haired woman with piercing blue eyes peering down at him with genuine concern. She’d held a cup of water to his dry, cracked lips and after half a dozen hasty sips Soren had finally managed to croak out a _“Where am I?”_

She had smiled reassuringly at him and simply stated, “Home. You’re safe now, child,” which had not been reassuring at all as Soren had realised with growing alarm that the environment surrounding him was most certainly _not_ home.

He’d pulled frantically at his memory only to find it slipping from his mind like water through cupped hands. The last thing he could remember clearly was Lucky’s face, twisted in anger. And for the life of him he couldn’t remember why. Beyond that there was simply a nauseous blur of manhandling, pain, and the sharp, pervasive tang of salt and damp, which now that he thought about it had probably been a boat considering…

 

_“Kinloch Hold,” she said softly, her hand gently smoothing back the damp strands of hair off his forehead. “The Ferelden Circle of Magi. You were transferred here from the Gallows, do you remember?”_

_Soren blinked at her, uncomprehending. Kinloch Hold? He wrung his memory of Kirkwall geography and came up blank. The Gallows though… that was…_

_“Wait, what?” He struggled to sit up, wincing as the side of his abdomen protested with a dull ache. The woman made some soothing noises and gently pushed him back onto the bed._

_“No need to rush now. You’ve been in a fever all week from an infected wound. Give your body some time to adjust.” She smiled at him. “We were worried about you for a while there, but you’re through the worst of it now.”_

_Soren stared at her, slowly taking in the simple, no-nonsense robe the woman wore. He turned his head woodenly to the other side of the bed where there stood what was unmistakably a templar. The fabric adornments on the iconic armour were a rich purple rather than the dramatic crimson of the Gallows, but everything else was the same. His brain juddered to a halt as it finally managed to catch up and process the older woman’s words._

_“The Circle of fucking Magi?” he spat, horrified. “Ferelden??”_

 

“Only boys can do magic!” a young boy sitting towards the back of the room called out in response to the question, accompanied by a round of sniggers by his friends. The outburst jerked Soren out of the daze he’d slipped into, and he groaned inwardly.

If he’d had his way he’d still be huddled in bed trying resolutely to wake up back in a sensible reality. Unfortunately the longer he was awake the less dreamlike everything seemed to become, although still none of it made a lick of sense.

A cursory examination of the room when he’d entered it, sheep-like, along with the rest of them about a half hour ago had revealed that he was currently sitting among about a score of children and young adults, tending towards the younger age group. Seated on his left was a girl who might’ve been ten at a push, and to his right was a boy who was currently sucking his thumb and looked like he was barely out of swaddling. There was a scant handful of older apprentices sitting towards the back of the room, but Soren hadn’t had a chance to interact with them at all. What he could only think of as his templar ‘guard’ had simply sat him down in the front row, and Soren had held neither the energy nor the inclination to argue.

Their instructor was staring drily at the young boy. “No. That’s not what it means, Willis. Anyone else?”

Soren shot the templar a sidelong glance. With the helmet and armour they seemed almost inhuman, and he couldn’t help but feel like they were staring directly at him. Well, all things considered, it wasn’t exactly an unlikely scenario. Probably they were making sure he didn’t simply pass out from the morning’s ordeal.

The crook of his elbow ached with a dull, throbbing pain where they’d stuck him earlier on that morning with the hollow needle in order to draw the blood from his veins. The skin was still an angry, inflamed red from the intrusion, even though he had watched with a sick fascination as they knitted the flesh back with magic after the deed was done. He’d never received magical healing before. Such treatments were costly and well out of reach for the average man on Lowtown’s streets. He rubbed at the skin gently with a thumb, trying to ease the ache a little.

The girl next to him appeared to be hanging onto the instructor’s every word. Her hand shot into the air, and she flushed with pride when their tutor nodded at her.

“It means that magic should be used to help people, and not be used to make them do what we want?”

“Very good, Amanda! Yes, that is the most fundamental rule of magic,” the mage cooed at her. Soren shuddered. “As you all know, in the past, magic has often been used to ill effect and…”

Soren began to tune out. Seemed like religious sermon was much the same no matter where you went. It was exactly the sort of self-serving Chantry bullshit he had already suffered through all too much of during his schooling back in Kirkwall, although now it came packaged with an extra load of self-guilt and admonition tailored specifically for mages. His education might have been somewhat patchwork—the impoverished neighbourhoods of Lowtown not being known after all for their academic opportunities—but there had been a couple of years in which the local Chanters had done the rounds around the neighbourhood and press ganged the children into attending what passed as schooling in the slums. The curriculum had been religious mainly, which Gamlen had scoffed at, but there had also been some history, geography, and basic literacy involved as well. But even before all that his uncle had painstakingly taught him, night after night, how to read.

 _Look, I might’ve sold up the family estate,_ Gamlen had told him when Soren, all of six years old, had complained bitterly about the lessons, _but I’ll be damned if I’m the one to let the Amell’s degenerate into a bunch of illiterate fools. That’s noble blood running through your veins, Boy. For all it’s damn well worth. Besides,_ he had leaned in conspiratorially, _it gives you the edge over the rest of the rabble when it comes to business, trust me._ Well it had been over eight years since that conversation and the only business endeavours Gamlen had ever seemed to have had an edge in were drinking, gambling, and whoring his way to an early grave. Then again, Soren had always played a good game of Wicked Grace. He didn’t see how that was related to reading, but perhaps it conferred some sort of passive bonus.

He rubbed gingerly at his arm again. They’d singled him out along with a few others after what had passed as breakfast that morning (which had seen Soren mainly just nauseatingly pushing some grey porridge around a bowl with a spoon while staring hollow eyed at the table), and taken him away to a secluded room where the matronly white haired mage from before had given him what she had kindly described as a ‘sleepy tea’ and asked politely for him to take it. Soren had refused as a matter of course, and it had taken two templars, Soren nearly choking to death, and a brand new cup of tea to finally get the stuff down his throat.

Maybe fifteen minutes later and Soren had felt a ponderous calm come over him. His muscles had relaxed and he’d found his eyelids growing heavy. He’d made no move to resist when the templars dragged him out of the corner where he’d been huddled and seated him on a chair in the centre of the room. Even as he’d watched them roll up his sleeve and tie a cord tight around his bicep to make the vein visible, he’d simply observed the actions with a detached curiosity. The entire process had taken all of about five minutes.

They’d allowed him to lie down afterwards as the drug slowly left his system. But as the foggy calm lifted and he’d started to fidget with the pervasive sense of dread he’d harboured since he awoke in the tower, the old woman had suggested that perhaps he’d like to attend the weekly Chantry service with the other young mages.

He’d told them in no uncertain terms that attending the Chantry service was about the last thing he’d ever ‘like’ to do, but unsurprisingly no one had seemed to care about his opinion. Being ignored was about the only consistent thing to happen to him since arriving at the Circle.

 

_“I’m not a mage.” His head was pounding. His body was cold and weak, and his throat felt as dry as the Western Approach, but the words hung clearly in the air. Mage and templar alike stared at him. There was a long pause, and then the woman pinned a stern stare on the templar across from her and whispered something furiously about ‘Kirkwall idiots’ and their ‘brain melting narcotics’._

 

Since then everyone had simply given him pitying glances every now and again and taken to whispering amongst themselves while in his general vicinity. His protests went unheard. The few times anyone had deigned to actually converse with him, it was done with the kind of tone one might use on a confused child.

Well, he had to admit, he was fucking confused.

_Mage._

Yeah, right. It was a name he’d never imagined would apply to him. The whole fucking situation was frankly absurd. Laughable even. He felt as if he was somehow going to wake up at any moment, that his eyes would suddenly fly open and he’d find himself back in Kirkwall, in the little house he shared with his uncle. The thought of Gamlen twisted his gut a little. He wondered what the man would be thinking. He had no idea if anyone—bar Lucky, and knowing that snivelling rat, it wouldn’t do Soren a lick of good—knew what had happened. If not, presumably Soren had simply disappeared off the face of the earth, washed out to sea along with the rest of the street garbage.

Surely Gamlen would search for answers… either that or drink himself into a stupor. Unfortunately, Soren knew the latter was far more likely, but still… if against all odds Gamlen tracked him down to the Circle…

_And what then?_

The voice in his head niggled at him. He turned his palm over and examined it, perturbed. He couldn’t _actually_ be a mage, right? Wouldn’t he know? He shook his head a little to clear it of the troublesome thought. Maker’s balls, now he was actually questioning his own identity.

He’d never really heard his uncle express an opinion about mages—aside from that one time when Soren had been about eight years old, and Gamlen had stumbled home piss drunk and told him in no uncertain terms that he simply wasn’t _allowed_ to be a mage, and by the Maker’s crooked prick if Soren so much as _looked_ at the fire in the wrong way he’d be getting the hiding of his life.

Of course he’d spent the next week staring perplexedly at their hearth wondering what the hell Gamlen had been on about, but no demons had erupted from the flames, and he’d never received the promised hiding. In fact, his uncle seemed oblivious to the entire conversation and if anything, seemed to be more affectionate than usual towards him.

At the time he had passed it off as just his uncle being drunk and weird, but now, given the circumstances, had the exchange been based off something more? Had his uncle known something Soren didn’t? Had he somehow _suspected_ that Soren was a mage?

He considered this as he absentmindedly examined the monstrosity of a tapestry that hung at the front of the little Chantry. The mangy thing somewhat gruesomely depicted Andraste burning in the flames, and may have once, many years ago, been a lush and sumptuous work of art. Decades of dust and mildew however had leeched much of the vibrancy from the fabric.

It seemed unlikely. Surely if Gamlen truly had harboured suspicions of such a nature then wouldn’t he have acted upon them long ago? Hauled Soren off to the Gallows and left him to rot? That was what one _did_ with mages, wasn’t it?

Although… if his uncle had known how much Andrastian bullshit apparently got crammed down mages’ throats at these places, perhaps he might have not sent Soren away out of pity. He allowed himself an amused snort at this thought. Gamlen always had been a staunch skeptic of the Chantry, his views on the institution ranging from irreverence to a rather dark enmity sometimes when he’d been at his cups.

How did one even go about figuring out they were a mage? Surely it wasn’t the kind of thing that just slipped one’s notice. Did it simply take everyone by surprise? He’d heard the horror stories obviously. A spate of fires that broke out in the alienage the year past had been attributed to a young elven apostate, but Soren had his suspicions. The gossip that he’d been privy to whilst working the shadier run of dockside taverns had revealed the fact that not only did no one give a shit about the loss of life and property when it came to the elves, but that there seemed to be a prevalent attitude running among the patrons that seemed almost congratulatory.

That aside, there was the ever present talk of _abominations._ This was a word Soren had heard bandied about over the years, usually from the Chantry, or spoken about in hushed whispers when Soren had been only small and some of the older kids were trying to scare him. He didn’t know exactly what it meant, only that mages were prone to becoming them. However considering that at the time he hadn’t known a single mage, the threat had seemed rather empty. Of course he’d spent the next few nights giving the darkened alleys near his house a rather leery second glance, but that was definitely more to do with the risk of being surprised by some idiot preteen jumping out at him than an actual fear of twisted monsters coming in the night to gobble him up. Definitely.

Anyways, he’d been called many things over the years, ‘Boy’ mostly, sometimes ‘kid’, ‘bastard’, ‘brat’, ‘high-born trash’, sometimes even ‘Soren’, but never _‘abomination’._

“Fabian.”

Yeah, that one was new too.

He shifted his gaze to the side a little to eye up the woman looming over him. The mage was thin and stood ramrod straight. Her once blonde hair was streaked with grey and was tacked up upon her head in a strict bun.

He grimaced and idly brought up a knuckle to scratch at his ear, wondering if he’d heard that right. He’d been almost sure someone had used that name in his vicinity recently, but with his thoughts addled enough as it was he hadn’t exactly stopped to check.

“I’m not—” His voice could hardly raise above a whisper. Maker, he was tired. His head was foggy. It was hard to think. _Not what? A mage? Someone named Fabian? What the hell was even happening?_ He felt his breath hitch a little in his throat and his pulse flutter.

He realised belatedly that the woman’s mouth was still moving.

“What?” he finally struggled out blankly.

There was a series of titters from further down the room. The mage-priest’s eyes glittered at him.

“I asked, dear, if you might know another way in which we can interpret Andraste’s first commandment of magic?” Her words were laced with a sickening sweetness.

Soren raised an eyebrow incredulously. Seriously? Like he fucking gave a shit about scripture. He shifted in his chair a little, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the sea of little eyes staring at him.

“Dunno,” he muttered sullenly, having to bite back the natural inclination to make a more sardonic remark. Maker, he just wanted to be left alone. He wanted this fog out of his head. He wanted his world to make sense again.

It didn’t work. If anything his lack of a decisive answer seemed to encourage her further. She leaned in closer to him, causing him to tilt a far away as he could in order to avoid her breathing down his neck.

“Now come on, darling. I know you can do better than that,” she said in what she clearly thought was supposed to be a soothing tone of voice. “Don’t worry, there are no wrong answers here.”

Disgust and irritation curled up his spine. He narrowed his eyes at her. “The _fuck_ did you just call me?” he whispered.

His response seemed to give her pause, and she straightened up to survey him. “Now, you mind your tongue, young man.” The sweetness which had caked her voice was rapidly fading away. “Try again. ‘Magic exists to serve man, and—”

“Never to rule over him,” Soren growled. “Yeah, yeah. I know the fucking words.” Of course he knew them. Everyone did. He was starting to get the unwelcome impression that he was going to be hearing them with a much greater frequency though. “You wanna know what they mean? It means take the Chantry’s prick right up your ass and don’t forget to say please and thank you.”

There was a collective intake of breath from around the room. The mage was staring at him warily, a heady flush worming its way onto her face. She seemed to regretting eliciting his input. Soren felt a savage joy kindling in his belly.

“Or maybe,” he continued viciously, enjoying the rush that the unfurling of tension within him was creating, “you wanted something a little less symbolic? Perhaps Andraste just really wanted to get _served_ by a mage. Maybe Hessarion’s sword of mercy was just a figure of speech. Do you think that was the whole point of her exalted march on the Imperium? She just wanted some magic cock buried deep in her—”

_“That is enough!”_

Was it his imagination or did the candlelight just flicker? He grinned wryly up into the mage’s beet red face and couldn’t help but to laugh a little. It was hardly his best material but you took what you were given, and this Chantry-blind fool clearly wasn’t used to antagonisation. Soren guessed she wasn’t a fan of the popular and rather salacious novella, _Hessarion’s Spear_ (complete with illustrations), that had done the rounds a few years back. Even the templar standing watch by the door shifted a little. Whether from amusement or discomfort it was impossible to tell. The helmet hid their face impenetrable behind it.

The woman’s sugary tones dissolved into a hiss. “You will not defile the name of our Lady in my Chantry. By Andraste’s grace, there are _children_ present!”

“Oh, really?” Soren stared around the room in mock surprise. “I hadn’t realised. What? You think they don’t know what genitals are for? The education here must be sorely lacking. Well, I guess it’s intentional on your part. Sexual repression being touted as virtue is nothing new for the Chantry. I suppose you expect them all to be celibate on top of having their every other freedom curtailed?”

“It’d probably help you, y’know,” he continued, aware on some level that he was digging himself into a hole he might have trouble crawling out of later and finding that he just didn’t care. “I could offer my services. I am a professional after all. Been doing it since I was her age.” He jabbed a thumb left towards Amanda. It wasn’t strictly true. It’d been a handful of months after his thirteenth birthday when he’d figured out that the sailors down by the wharf would give him money if he sucked their cocks off. It’d been a few months later when he’d found out—somewhat accidentally—that they’d give him even more if he let them stick their pricks in his ass.

The mage’s face was white. She shot a shaky finger towards the door. “Out. _Now.”_

Soren lurched to his feet, the wooden bench he’d been seated on scraping back over the flagstones. “You think I _want_ to be here?” he seethed at her. “You freaks are the ones who’re fucking keeping me here. I don’t want… I can’t—” He could feel a pricking heat behind his eyes as his emotions threatened to spiral out from under his tentative control.

The woman glared at him steadily. “Be that as it may,” she intoned, voice cold, “I refuse to sanction your atrocious blasphemy, and frankly, over-inflated opinion of yourself.”

Something akin to rage had blossomed in his core. He could feel his blood thrilling through his veins as all the resentment and anger at his situation, which had hitherto been repressed by both substance and fear, billowed up out of him.

“Oh, yeah. You’d like that,” he whispered at her darkly. “For me to be ashamed of who I am. Well fuck you. Fuck your Chantry. I won’t do it. I won’t _ever_ be ashamed. It’s called having a sense of self-worth, you fucking _bitch!”_ What had begun as a whisper had erupted into a shout which hung stark in the near silent room. The little boy who had been seated next to him was crying.

The heat that had been gathering behind his eyes seemed to have flowed down his body. He felt like someone had dipped him in liquid fire. Like something inside him was _singing._ “It’s something all you Chantry-fed sheep seem to have forgotten. Who knows?” His whole body was trembling. “Maybe if you got your withered, old cunt tickled once in awhile, you might feel some yourself!”

He was so busy keeping one wary eye on the templar who had moved towards him a pace, that he didn’t have time to react to the slap the woman levelled at him. His face swung to the side with the force of the strike, and his world tilted askew.

He stumbled back a step, glaring out at her from under a veil of black hair which had fallen over his face. His eyes caught on the floor. The previously cold and grey flagstones were shimmering red hot where he had been standing a moment ago.

The mage was staring at her outstretched hand horrified, as if her own actions had taken her by surprise. Then her gaze moved to Soren. Her eyes widened into something that resembled genuine fear. “Control yourself, boy!” She hastily stepped backwards to hover near the altar, as if she were afraid of him.

Soren jerked his head up to match her gaze. “Control?” he hissed softly, unaware of the pale blue flames which had begun to lick at his legs. His lips pulled back off his teeth in a deranged grin. “I’ll fucking show you control.”

He had no idea what he was doing. The feeling that had taken ahold of him was like nothing he’d ever experienced. But, he thought for one wild moment, if this was magic then he was suddenly absurdly glad that he had it. He felt… amazing. His focus was suddenly crystal clear. The world seemed sharper, brighter. Like everything was aligned and he walked poised upon some knife edge with cutting clarity. Every breath he took seemed to stoke something further within him. It tasted like freedom. Like his lungs were combusting.

_Burn._

He breathed in air. Breathed out mana. With a whoosh of ignition and with barely a conscious thought on his part, the gruesome tapestry adorning the front of the Chantry burst into flame, tongues of deep blue fire licking their way up the fabric

For a moment he could only watch, astounded, as the depiction of Andraste melted away into the fire. Had the situation been slightly less absurd he might’ve even been able to appreciate the irony.

Screams cut through the air as the instructor and the children shied away from the conflagration, and Soren whirled as the templar waded their way through the chaos towards him.

“You fucking _stay away from me!”_ Alarm raced through him and without a thought for what he was even attempting to do, his fingers crooked up in front of him and _pulled._ The air splintered and a blinding blue-white light crackled out of the seams he’d rent open, like stitches being torn from a scrap of cloth.

Ghostly white spots were left dancing across his vision as the lightning arced gracefully through the air to connect with his assailant, and for all of a scant second Soren felt triumph running through him. But the feeling was short lived as it became abundantly clear that his efforts had amounted to nothing. The templar had barely staggered as the bolt hit them, the lightning harmlessly scattering away as it hit their armour. Soren scuttled backwards, shoving a bench out of his way as he tried in vain to keep the templar at a distance. His back hit the cold stone wall and behind the panic there was only one unwelcome thought from what was probably the more logical side of his mind.

_Yeah. You’re fucked Amell._

Despite the futility of the situation he still struggled fiercely as the templar reached out from him, batting away their attempts to grab him and probably severely bruising himself in the process as his hands beat against the heavy plate armour.

He yelped as the templar finally grasped his wrist, the grip tight and unyielding on the fragile limb, and he found himself yanked forwards and off balance. He grunted as he hit the floor, the air chased out of his lungs. With the templars knee lodged firmly against his spine he had little hope of getting out of the hold. His arms ached as the templar held them pincered behind his back.

“Maker’s balls,” the templar sighed. “Settle the fuck down, kid.” The voice was feminine, if a little tinny from behind the metal helm, and for a moment Soren couldn’t help but feel an odd little sense of sentiment as he realised that the accent was Kirkwallian.

It was shut down pretty quickly though as the cold, hard facts overwhelmed the more empathic part of his brain. He wriggled futilely against the templar’s iron grasp, and then relented; panting and more exhausted than he might like to admit, against the flagstones.

“Are you going to behave?” the templar asked him, deadpan. Soren attempted to spit at her. It resulted in little more than spraying the floor with spittle.

“Fuck you,” he ground out.

The templar’s helmet moved slightly in a way that suggested she was rolling her eyes. “Of course you aren’t,” she sighed. “Figures.”

Her gauntleted hand gripped the back of his neck in a surprisingly gentle fashion, her thumb and little finger touching the back of his jawline. Soren shivered, a cold fury seeping through him.

“Fucking cu—” His profanity slammed into a gasp as the templar did _something_ to him. He felt his body convulse as the blood ran cold in his veins. Like the fire that had been so pleasantly smouldering away inside him had just been inexplicably snuffed out. He could feel something inside him _draining,_ and the inherent wrongness of it frightened him beyond measure. All rational thought had fled his mind leaving him acting only on instinct. His limbs jerked sporadically, trying to dislodge his body from the templar’s grip, and a primitive snarl hewed its way out of his throat.

There was another cold pulse from the templar’s hand, and this time Soren felt a lurching nausea rising within his belly. Then suddenly, something within him _broke_. Like some fundamental part of him had been severed. The fight went out of him and he collapsed bonelessly onto the floor, eyes glassily staring at the legs of a bench. He couldn’t even blink.

For a moment he panicked as a shimmering film covered his vision, and then he realised belatedly that he was crying, a low keen emanating from deep in his throat. A pair of slippered feet appeared in front of him.

“Get him out of here,” issued an imposing voice from over his head.

The templar hooked her hands under his arms and carefully pulled him to his feet. He could feel his knees trembling, threatening to give way beneath him. She drew his arm over her shoulder and wrapped a hand around his midriff so that she was half carrying him. The mage-priest stood before them, face eerily stony.

“We’ll see what the First Enchanter has to say about this,” she hissed as they moved past her. Soren couldn’t even raise his head to look at her, let alone dredge up the energy to make any form of remark back.

His head lolled sickeningly as the templar ferried him out of the Chantry, too exhausted to even think about protesting. His mind felt like it was clogged up with dust. A steady ache was thrumming through him. And for the first time since this whole terrible saga had begun; even through the chaos and confusion of the last few days and the sickening, blurred memories of what had come before, Soren suddenly felt truly and deeply _frightened_. This was real. And he was powerless.


End file.
